Richard F. Burton

Sir Richard Francis Burton (1821-1890) was a British explorer, scholar, and writer renowned for his travels across Asia, Africa, and the Middle East and for his translations of classical erotic and folkloric literature. Born in Torquay, Devon, he served in the British Army in India before undertaking his best-known feat: traveling in disguise to Mecca and Medina in 1853, becoming one of the first Europeans to document the Hajj. He later led an expedition with John Hanning Speke that reached Lake Tanganyika in the search for the source of the Nile, and served as British consul in several postings including Damascus and Trieste. His most enduring literary legacy is his translation The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, along with The Kama Sutra and The Perfumed Garden. He was knighted in 1886 and elected a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society.